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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Geriatric Youth Policy

Geriatric Youth Policy

‘The next item on the agenda this
morning,’ said Cycle Mata, as he looked around the cabinet table, ‘is youth
policy. Tomorrow is Youth Day, so I want to go to the march past and say
something about youth employment policy.’

The Minister for Age and Fat, Chipembele
Kambilimbili, turned to the minister next to him, the slack jawed Eager Bungle,
Minister for Deceptions and Deportations. ‘What’s a policy?’ whispered
Kambilimbili.

‘It’s what every minister should have,’
Bungle smirked, as he pulled his hip flask out of his pocket and took a quick
swig.

‘I don’t think so,’ said poor old
Shambles, scratching his head. ‘I think we only have an unemployment policy.’

‘I distinctly remember,’ said Clueless
Cluo, the Minister for Bribing Chiefs, ‘that we agreed on a youth policy at our
previous meeting, in October 2011.’

‘Did we? Did we?’ said Cycle Mata eagerly.
‘What did we say?’

‘We agreed to employ all our PF
cadres.’

‘I know that! I know that!’ shouted
Cycle Mata angrily. ‘But I can’t say that at tomorrow’s Youth Day Parade! Give
me a policy quick! What’s the use of having all you ministers if you can’t even give me a policy?
You, Dr Phiri-Phiri, aren’t you the Minister of Education?

‘Good gracious no,’ sneered Phiri-Phiri,
‘I’m nothing to do with Education, I’m the Minister for Schools.’

‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘But we can
take unemployed youths off the street!’

‘Same thing, same thing,’ said Cycle Mata eagerly. ‘How d’you do it?’

‘Well, it’s many years since we got
rid of the Grade Seven leaver problem by putting them all into secondary
school. A few years later we had the Grade Twelve leaver problem, so we put them
all into university. So now we have the university leaver problem, the solution
is to put them all into post-graduate school to do PhDs.’

‘What a silly idea!’ shouted Cycle Mata. ‘Give
them all PhDs and they’ll end up as silly as you!’

‘I’ve been looking at the figures,’
said Dotty Scotty, as he scribbled on his notepad. ‘We’ve got about a million people
in work and two million unemployed. Now if people work on average for 30 years,
then about 35,000 vacancies will become available every year as people retire.
This means that we can employ all the unemployed within a period of only 60
years!’

‘Is that correct?’ asked Cycle Mata,
as he turned to Feckless Shambles.

‘Of course it’s not correct,’ snapped the
Minister for Internal Division, Splinter Kapimbe. ‘If it takes 60 years then
all he youths will be dead before they ever get employment. And he’s also forgotten
about the additional fifteen million people that will have been born in the
meantime.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Dotty, scratching his
head. ‘I used to be so clever when I was at Cambridge.’

‘I can still do arithmetic,’ chirped
up the Minister for Food Shortages, Bald Sichilienge. ‘And I’ve got a simple arithmetical
solution to the problem. We already have 350,000 self-employed vendors on the
pavement. So if we increase the size of the pavement by a factor of four, we
could have another million self-employed.’

‘But then all of the road would be pavement,’
chuckled Dotty, ‘with no space for the traffic.’

‘I’ve got a better idea,’ said Eager
Bungle eagerly, as his red eyes lit up, ‘I could create 100,000 jobs by
deporting all the Chinese!’

‘They’re the ones that fund the party,’
snapped Splinter Kapimbe.

‘Then how about,’ said Bungle, ‘Creating
ten by-elections and recruit 50,000 into the party militia?’

‘We’re already done that!’ hissed
Kapimbe.

‘I’ve got it,’ said Kambilimbili, ‘The
answer has been staring us in the face! Just as every minister has five deputy
ministers, so it should be in the entire economy! Every managing director should
have five deputies! Every bus driver must have five deputy drivers! Even a
carpenter must have five deputies! Then instead of having one million jobs, we
shall have six million jobs!

‘You’ve forgotten one thing,’ chuckled
Phiri-Phiri, ‘these deputy ministers don’t have any job, they just have
salaries.’

‘I’ve solved the problem,’ laughed
Clueless Cluo.

‘Oh?’ said Shambles. ‘What’s the
answer?’

‘The answer is that we don’t need a policy
anymore, because Our Beloved Excellency has fallen fast asleep.’

‘He was working very late last night,’
explained Kapimbe, ‘examining HaHa’s bank statements.’

‘But he’ll still need a new policy to
announce tomorrow,’ said Shambles.

‘He’s completely worn out,’ said
Clueless Cluo. ‘Call the nurses to take him back to bed. Dotty Scotty will have to attend the Youth Day
celebrations instead.’

‘I shall announce,’ said Dotty in joyous
voice, while raising one wrinkled and wobbly fist into the air, ‘that our New Policy
of Full Employment for All Youth will be presented to parliament within
the next 90 days!’